Barry Friedman - Dead End (8 page)

“Right. Did you know him or have any connection
to him in any way?”

“No. The only thing I know about him is what I
read in the papers.”

“How about Noah Hamberger?”

Lavant held up a hand in front of Harwood before
he answered. “Wait a minute. What are you trying to pull? Who is Hamberger?”

Maharos said, “Why don’t you let the guy answer?
I’m not trying to ‘pull’ anything. Either he knows or doesn’t know.”

Lavant thought a moment then said, “Okay, Lance.”

Harwood said, “Never heard of the person.”

“Your file says that you had owned a .22
 
caliber gun. What happened to it?”

Lavant broke in. “Wait a minute. Come on, Maharos,
you know better than to ask about a pending case.”

Harwood waved him aside. “I don’t mind answering.
I’ve already explained about that gun to the detective who arrested me after
Frank’s death. I had bought the gun a few years ago because I often go—went—to
people’s homes to help them in decorating. Also, I often went in the evening.
This city is getting so you can’t walk around at night even in the good
neighborhoods. Know what I mean?”

Maharos’ head bobbed once.

Harwood went on. “For a few months I carried the
gun, but it was bulky and, frankly, it destroyed the lines of my suits. I
stopped carrying it and stuck it away in a drawer. I really forgot all about
it. And then, a year ago the apartment that Frank and I shared was robbed. When
I reported to the police what was missing I had completely forgotten about the
gun. In fact I didn’t even remember it until they reminded me about it when
they questioned me about Frank’s death. They found out about it, because it had
been registered in my name. I’m sure it was stolen in the robbery. But, of
course, the stupid police wouldn’t believe my story.”

Maharos said, “Lance, I know that you and Frank
Burnstein had quarreled, and the record shows that you had attacked him. Can
you tell me what your fights were about?”

Lavant stopped him before he could answer. “Now
I’m really going to put my foot down. Lance, I forbid you from answering.
Maharos, I think I’ve been patient enough with you. I’m terminating this
interview.”

Maharos had learned from the file that Harwood
claimed he was at home, reading and watching television the night Burnstein was
killed. He had read the interrogation transcript after Harwood had been picked
up. He recalled the questioning:

DET. SUMMERS: What did you two fight about?

HARWOOD: Oh, it was so awfully silly. I’m ashamed
to talk about it. The first time, we had been to a party and Frank spent the
evening talking to this young man, a poet. Well, to make it brief, I’d had a
few drinks and when we got home I accused Frank of making a pass at the boy.
Frank laughed it off, I flew into a rage and, well, you know what happened. The
second time, I think it was just a few days before he was—before he died, Frank
didn’t come home from the hospital until almost midnight. He always called when
he was going to be late, but this time I didn’t hear from him until he walked
in the door. I was furious. He told me he had taken one of the nurses out to a
bar for a drink after work. A girl! I flipped, of course. It was ridiculous.
Anyway, one thing led to another and I—well, it was only a teeny cut on his
hand. They made a big thing of it in the ER. Put stitches in it, for God sakes.
All it needed was a Band-Aid.

Now that Lavant had signaled the end of his
interview with Harwood, Maharos got up to leave. Harwood dropped his chin to
his chest and slowly shook his head. When he raised it to gaze squarely at
Maharos, his eyes were misty. His voice broke as he answered. “Frank was the
dearest, sweetest, kindest soul I ever met. He never harmed anyone. I can’t
conceive of anyone who would want him dead.”

Maybe someone who was insanely jealous, Maharos
thought. He rose, extended his hand and said, “Thank you. You have been most
cooperative.”

Harwood touched his little finger to a corner of
an eye and asked brightly, “Is any of this information going to help clear me?”

Maharos smiled and shrugged. He thought that
Harwood had made a remarkable recovery from his grief.

Although Maharos’ desk was in the back corner of
the squad room, he could see the note propped up on it as soon as he walked in
the door. From the size of the notepaper and the huge capital letters, a rookie
cop, much less a detective first grade, could have figured out that Lieutenant
Bragg was unhappy about something. It read, “SEE ED BRAGG!!”

In the three days since he had spoken to Lance
Harwood in Canton, he had questioned three other homicide suspects on the list
Karen Hennessy had prepared for him. He had interviewed the families of two
additional murder victims, and spoken to police and sheriffs in Akron, Wooster
and Alliance, cities in the northeast Ohio area. So far, the only case in any
way related to the Horner and Hamberger killings, was that of Frank Burnstein.
In that one, as in the others, he had reached a dead end. From Burnstein’s
coworkers at Mercy Hospital he had learned only that Flossie, as they called
him, was the last person in the world anyone would want to kill. Obviously,
someone (and he doubted it was Harwood) hadn’t gotten the word.

The growl that came from Lieutenant Bragg’s office
in response to his knock, confirmed Maharos’ suspicion that he was in trouble.

Bragg’s eyes were almost obscured by his scowling
brows. The down turned corners of his mouth reached his chin. “Come in and
close the door,” he ordered.

Maharos remained standing and Bragg did not offer
him a chair.

“What the hell are you trying to do to us,
Maharos?”

“Sir?”

“Don’t give me any of that ‘sir’ shit.” He
pointed to the phone on his desk. “That thing has been ringin’ like a
three-alarm fire for the past two days. My ass has been tore ragged by everyone
in the state from the Canton D.A. to the Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme
Court in Columbus. They all want to know why my department is torpedoing a case
they’ve been building for the past five months and for which they’re about to
go to court in a week! And they want to know what right one of my men has to
talk to prospective witnesses in a trial that’s out of our jurisdiction.”

Maharos decided to buy time. Quietly, he said,
“Mind if I sit down?”

Bragg thundered, “I don’t give a shit whether you
sit, stand or flip on your side. I want you to explain to me what the fuck is
goin’ on.”

Slowly, patiently and softly, Maharos related
where his investigation of Horner’s murder had taken him. Bragg listened while
impatiently tapping the edge of his desk with a pen and staring intently at
him. Maharos concluded, “Look, we want to find out who the killer or killers
are. We sure as hell don’t want to see an innocent person convicted.”

“Oh? Now, we can forget about the principal of a
Trial by Jury? Now, we can save the time and expense of courts and trials? Now,
all we need is some smart-ass detective who sticks a wet finger in the breeze
and tells us who did what to who? Come on, Maharos, I don’t need a sermon from
you about convicting an innocent person.”

Maharos shrugged. “Want me off the Horner case?”

Bragg pursed his lips and let the thought sink in
before he answered. “Okay. I’ll tell you what I want: I want you to stay on the
case. I’ll give you another two weeks to come up with something.”

“Three.”

“All right, three. But that’s it. And I want a
report on my desk every time you sneeze. I want to be on top of this thing
minute-by-minute. Understood?”

“Yes sir.”

*
  
*
  
*

The list showed no homicides on February 7th that
fit the pattern. In fact, there had been only two homicides in the state on
that date, one in Toledo and one in a small community outside Springfield, and
both had been motor vehicular homicides. A hit-and-run driver had been
apprehended, convicted and sentenced in the first, and a drunk driver was
serving a jail term for the second.

The March 7th list contained the name of Marlon
Graves, a resident of Talmadge, Ohio, a small town outside Akron. He had been
shot to death and his murder was still unsolved and under investigation by the
Summit County Sheriff’s Department.

A phone call to the sheriff’s office put Maharos
in touch with Deputy Sheriff Norton Kohler, the officer in charge of the
investigation. Kohler told him that Graves had been a clothing salesman in
Talmadge and had been found shot to death in his car on a dirt road near
Barberton, a few miles away, and just off I 77.

Kohler told him, “We found out that Graves was a
pretty heavy gambler. Probably not a very good gambler, which is why he sold
clothes for a living. Anyway, on the evening he was killed, he called his wife
from the clothing store in Akron where he worked and told her that after work,
around six, he planned to drive to Richfield for a Cavalier’s basketball game.
He said she should go ahead and eat dinner by herself; he’d grab a bite at a
stand at the game. He mentioned to one of his co-workers that he planned to
stop off at the home of a bookie on his way to the game, and place a bet.”

Maharos said, “Did he meet with the bookie?”

“No. We questioned the guy. He said Graves had
called before he left the store, but never showed up.”

“What kind of bets did he usually make?”

“Anywhere from one to five hundred, occasionally
as much as a grand.”

Maharos whistled. “That’s heavy. Do you think
it’s possible he had a winning bet and the bookie paid him off with lead.”

“No. We know the guy. He’s not gonna knock off
anyone for that kind of dough. He can take a two-, three-grand loss without any
sweat. The same bookie collected over four K on other bets just that night.
Besides, he told us that Graves was a regular customer of his, and over the
course of a year the guy would drop a bundle on track and football bets. He was
sure he’d get back whatever he might have lost—if Graves had lived.

“There’s another reason we’re sure the bookie
didn’t do Graves. He had a rock solid alibi for his whereabouts most of the
evening.”

Maharos thought he wouldn’t trust a bookie’s
alibi regardless how solid it seemed. “What’s rock solid?”

“Shortly after he spoke to Graves, the Akron
police picked him up for soliciting bets and booked him into their jail
overnight.”

That’s rock solid, Maharos agreed, unless he had
a hit man working for him. “Did the bookie operate with someone else or a
syndicate?”

“Tony D’Alsandro’s a loner, but he’s honest—and
in this case, clean.”

“Did Graves have the money he planned to bet when
they found him?

“Nope. No money, no wallet.”

“Any idea if he made it to the game?”

Kohler said. “We have no way of knowing. We
showed his picture around to the ticket sellers, ushers, vendors. We got
nothin’ but laughs from them. They’re too busy with the crowds to remember one
face from another. I personally don’t think he got to the game.”

“Why?”

“We found him in his car right outside Barberton.
That’s south of Akron. It’s the opposite direction from Richfield where he’d be
going if he went to the game.”

“Any other leads?”

“Nope. And we’ve stopped trying. The case is cold
now. By the way, what’s your interest in this?”

Maharos briefly told him that he was investigating
any cases that fit the M.O. of Horner’s murder. “I’ll stop by this afternoon
and have a look at your file on Graves, if it’s all right with you.”

“Sure.”

*
  
*
  
*

Maharos sat in the file room of the Summit County
Sheriff’s office with the papers spread out on the table before him. Before he
was half through, he knew he had found a match to go with the Horner,
Hamberger, Burnstein murders. The autopsy report showed the same pattern of
gunshot wounds although the bullets recovered were from a .32
 
caliber Smith and Wesson revolver, different
from the weapons used in the other three cases. The guy must have an arsenal,
thought Maharos. Ballistics studies did not match any other cases on file. All
the latent fingerprints recovered were those of the victim. Fiber analysis of
the vacuumed material from the car and the victim’s clothing gave no clues.
Unlike the other three cases, there were no Navy blue wool fibers reported.

One curious finding turned up in the chemical
analysis of dirt particles found in the floor carpeting of the car. A substance
in trace amounts was identified as glutaraldehyde. It was not present on the
soles of Graves’ shoes, and could have been tracked in by the killer. Maharos
had no idea what glutaraldehyde was. He picked up the phone on the desk in the
file room and asked to be connected with the Summit County Crime Lab. He asked
for the chief technician. The operator said, “That will be Jerry Schwartz.”

When Schwartz came on the line, Maharos explained
that he’d been reviewing the lab report of Marlon Graves. “The report says you
found glutaraldehyde traces in the car carpet sweepings. What’s that?”

“Glutaraldehyde? That’s a tissue fixative. You’ve
heard of formaldehyde, also known as formalin, haven’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, glutaraldehyde is a close cousin of
formaldehyde.”

“What’s it used for?”

“I just told you. It’s a tissue fixative. It’s
used to keep tissue from decomposing. We use it in the lab for processing
tissue for microscopic examination. Formaldehyde works a little faster so we
use that for routine use. Glutaraldehyde is a little better preservative. We
use it mainly when we process tissue for electron microscopy. Glutaraldehyde is
also a constituent of embalming fluid.”

Maharos mulled that one over. He knew they hadn’t
found Graves already embalmed. “Any idea where it might have come from in
Graves’ case?”

“Have no idea. Maybe the guy who killed Graves.”

“Or maybe one of your techs picked it up on his
shoes from the lab and tracked it in to Graves’ car?”

“Possible.”

“Thanks.” He hung up.

*
 
*
 
*

Bonnie Graves, Marlon’s widow, was a
thirty-five-year-old Dolly Parton-type blonde. Maharos had called from the
sheriff’s office and tracked her down at Angel’s Hair, the beauty shop where
she worked as a manicurist. He met her there late in the afternoon, sat
self-consciously in the small waiting area flipping through Bazaar, while she
finished working on a customer. In his reflection on the wall mirror next to
his chair he could see the beads of sweat glistening on his hairless head.

Bonnie dried her hands on a towel and greeted
Maharos with a broad smile when she completed her manicure. She said, “You want
to talk about Marlon?”

Maharos explained briefly that he was conducting
an investigation of several homicides, Marlon Graves’ among them. He looked
around the small shop. Several women were under hair driers; others were having
their hair cut. He said, “Is there some place we can talk privately?”

Bonnie said that she was through working for the
day and suggested a bar down the street.

The bartender at Harry’s Place waved his towel
and yelled, “Hi, Bonnie!” over the crowd noise of a wrestling match that blared
from the overhead TV screen. Bonnie squeezed into a bench in one of the booths
along a wall and Maharos sat facing her.

The waitress came over and said, “What’ll it be,
Bonnie?” She ordered a vodka and tonic, Maharos ordered a light beer.

She said, “What’s the sudden interest in Marlon’s
death? I thought they’d given up any hope of finding the person that did it.”

Maharos explained that his interest was really in
another unsolved case in the Youngstown vicinity. “But if we can find a
pattern, we may be able to tell if the same person had committed more than one
murder.”

“Gee, you mean there’s a serial murderer loose?”

“Well, I don’t know that for a fact. But it’s one
of the things we’re trying to find out. The other thing I’m trying to find out
is if there is a connection between any of the murder victims. You see, Bonnie,
if one person is responsible for several of these deaths, is he or she just
picking victims at random or is there some tie between them?”

“That’s a lot of ‘ifs’.”

 
Maharos
smiled. This gal wasn’t one of your buxom dumb blonde types.

He showed her the names of the fifteen victims he
had culled from the list of homicides that had occurred on the seventh of each
month. He had omitted any reference to the dates or locations of the murders.
He asked her if she knew the names of the other people on his list. She took a
pair of large-framed spectacles from her purse and carefully read through them.
When she came to the name of George Horner, she pointed to it with a long,
vivid lavender fingernail. “That name looks familiar.” Maharos’ heart rate
leaped. Then she continued, “Didn’t I recently read about it in the newspapers?”

“You don’t know if your husband knew him, do
you?”